Tax Lien Investing - Thoughts?

[Benjamin Lewis]

I am going into my Junior year in college and am looking to get into real estate investment for sure when I graduate, and maybe even house hack a duplex senior year. But, I have been looking into tax lien investing lately. I know the foreclosure rate is only like .5% and takes 6 months to 2 years from start to finish if a lien goes unpaid. I was debating buying some tax liens in my area around school. I figure if I get paid or not, I either get good interest or a property in my last 2 years at school. I was wondering if anyone else has done any tax lien investing and had any sort of success with it? I assume the major pitfalls are not doing your due diligence and complying with all the rules involved with notifying effected parties, difficulty collecting payment, and cost/time it takes to foreclose if need be. I just figured if I can get lucky and get a property for a fraction of the market value at a time where I  and am a full time student and will not be able to qualify for any sort of financing why not try it?

[Jay Hinrichs]

@Ned Carey  I think like a lot of things real estate related concept is pretty easy to understand but execution can be quite difficult for a variety of reasons as you delineated... 

It kind of reminds me of those that watch some u tube on buying foreclosures get all cranked up waste a year and never get one because the prop they hone in on never actually sells.. people go BK it redeems or they get out bid.. 

Or when I thought I would go to Mississippi with some cash .. boy did the locals school me on that one.. I took 100k to the auction.. it went so fast and so much money was flying I took a stab at about 15 to 20k worth .. told my wife we are going home we are totally out of our comfort zone here.. and I don't think a one ever redeemed or I lost interest in them and never followed them.. so just blew that money off.